Welcome to RAF Voluntary Bands

Welcome to the Royal Air Force Voluntary Bands Website

The primary role of RAF Voluntary Bands is to provide music for ceremonial and social occasions at RAF units. The Bands also perform at many functions in their local areas; many of the engagements the Bands undertake are in aid of local and national charities.

Voluntary Bands encourage teamwork and esprit-de-corps, as well as raising the profile of the RAF in the local community.

Voluntary Wind Bands have a firm tradition in the RAF going back beyond the formation of the Service, and provided the basis upon which such prestigious bands as the RAF Central Band were formed. RAF music, now internationally famous, developed from a wide range of semi-official corps of drums, brass bands, military bands and pipe bands. Today’s Voluntary Bands are formed on a geographical basis from clutches of stations throughout the United Kingdom, and also in Cyprus.

The RAF Voluntary Band Association is the central body which, co-ordinates RAF Voluntary Band policy and activities and represents its members on those occasions when they are called upon to participate in major public events.

We hope that you will find the content of this site informative and that you will be encouraged to book one of the Voluntary Bands for your next concert, dinner, social function or parade. If you are a musician yourself, of whatever standard, you will hopefully be encouraged to join one of the Bands.

19 July 2012

The RAF Kinloss Voluntary Band is continuing to raise funds for charity as it nears the end of its tenure at the Moray base.

The RAF Voluntary Band Association (VBA) was founded in 1993 to represent RAF voluntary brass, concert, military and wind bands at home and abroad, and to foster the interests of their volunteer musicians.